Movers & Shakers: November 21, 2013

Botswana: DCI +0.18%, USD 217k

Not much on the go in Gaborone today as value traded amounted to USD 217k with Turnstar (406k shares) the most active name on the day.

Egypt: EGX 30 -0.62%, USD 100m

The market took a breather today after witnessing a notable rally over the last couple of sessions. The EGX30 ended the day down 0.62% to close at 6,457.01 points. Volumes remained healthy, with total turnover at EGP592 million. After the recent rally, the market witnessed some profit booking on weak momentum, with the main sellers being local retail investors and international institutions. Names such as GTHE, ACGC, and SKPC witnessed selling pressure leaving each to end the day down 1.02%, 2.70% and 1.99% respectively. Local institutions were strong buyers today as names such as CCAP, ESRS, and COMI witnessed notable accumulations toward the session's end.

Kenya: NSE 20 +0.59%, USD 7.6m

Safcom completely dominated both performance and activity as the telco rallied a mammoth 5.5% to close at KES 10.60 on solid volume of 22.9m shares. There was strong foreign demand (92.5%) in Equity Bank as 2.6m shares exchnged hands with the counter closing flat at KES 35.50. Uchumi was also actively traded today amongst local investors who pushed the price up 3.7% to KES 21. Insurance companies continued to witness strong investor demand with CIC leading the pack, edging up 8.9% to KES 5.50. Stanchart gained 1% to KES 309. The bank posted flat 3Q13 earnings on a year on year basis. Kenya Airways was amongst the day’s top losers slipping 3.9% to KES 12.45.

Mauritius: Semdex -0.07%, USD 977k

An uneventful day in Mauritius. The Sem-7 stocks were mixed with gains being registered in MCB (+49bps, Rs204), NMH (+58bps, Rs87), Alteo (+13bps, Rs37.10) and ENL Land (+99bps, Rs51). Losses were recorded in SBM (-95bps, Rs1.04) and IBL (-1.01%, Rs98).

Nigeria: ASI +0.78%, USD 43.1m

Another very active day in Lagos. Foreign buyers joined the local buying party and were focused, as usual, in the banks (+72bps) and consumers (+76bps). Oando ($18.03m) was extremely active today thanks to a large cross. Tier 1 banks saw the lion’s share of today’s trading with the two main outperformers being GTB (+1.46%, N26.39) and UBA (+1.79%, N7.94) while Tier 2 names were led by Fidelity (+4.33%, N2.65) and Diamond (+2.8%, N7.35). Consumers were also en vogue and were led higher by Flourmills (+3.59%, N86.50), Unilever (+3.46%, N61.30), Guinness (+3.3%, N250) and PZ (+2.16%, N37.80). NB lost 59bps on good volumes while Dangote Cement rose by 51bps to N196 on decent volumes.

Please note that the index figure above is correct at the time of writing.

South Africa: Top 40 -1.16%, USD 1.22bn

The JSE ended the day lower with the Top 40 Index falling 1.16% to close at 39,941 while value traded amounted to USD 1.22bn. Resources were the day's biggest losers with the Index falling 1.86% followed by Financials and Industrials which fell 0.91% and 0.76% respectively. The Rand was trading at 10.15 and 13.66 to the USD and EUR respectively by the time local markets closed.

Zimbabwe: Industrials -0.02%, Mining +0.83%, USD 530k

The mainstream index softened 0.02% to settle at 217.48pts in a session in which stocks traded sideways. Year to date the Industrials Index has gained +42.07% which falls short of the YTD best return of 52.8% attained at the index’s record high of 232.87pts on the 30th of July. Gains in Econet and Old Mutual of 1.44% and 1.09% to 62.50c and 278.01c failed to mitigate the losses in OK and Dairibord which eased 2% and 5.6% to 24.5c and 17c respectively among other losers. OK reported a flat bottom line for the interim period to September amid tight liquidity in the economy which is constraining consumption. The retailer also reported that a total of 15000 customers have registered on their OK Kawena project which allow cross-border purchase of goods on an electronic platform in either Zimbabwe or South Africa.

African Currencies